"Thank you"

My heartfelt thanks go to my 5th cousin, Alfhard Kowallek (deceased), for sending the wonderful portraits of our ancestors, Carl and Caroline Steffens. They are my great great great great grandparents - their daughter having married William Pickering.

According to Alfhard, Emilie Steffens was an accomplished artist and is very likely the artist who painted the portraits of her parents.

I would also like to thank my 6th cousin, Andreas Shultz for his work on the Steffens family tree. He has provided us with details of the family line and how the Steffens and Pickering families are related. Please visit his website by CLICKING HERE.

Letter from Steffens cousin?

From: Michael Steffens
by accident I found your Pickering/Steffens website. With great interest I
learn that your chronology of this family stopped at the end of the 18th
century. You mentioned the "Steffens-House" in Danzig. My father and my
grandpa, Walter Steffenssen., his first son Walter Steffens jun. and my
father Karl-Heinz Steffens, were residents of Danzig until the end of
second world war. They escaped to West Germany. There are any further connections
of the Pickering/Steffens family perhaps leading to my grandpa Walter
Steffens? My father told me, that the Steffens family were in former times
succesful merchants.

"Lange Market"

The Steffens lived in a very famous house in Danzig (which is now Gdansk in Poland) is referred to as the "Steffens-House".

Ninety percent of Danzig was destroyed in 1945 during WWII but the house's front side with it's golden plated decorations survived and the building was restored. The house is now called the "Golden House" and one of the handfull mayor sights to be seen in Gdansk near the "Lange Market".

Translated from: Encyklopedia GdanskaCARL GOTTLIEB STEFFENS (15 November 1749 Prabuty - 8 November 1825 Gdańsk), a merchant. Bookbinder's son Jacob (9 VIII 1715 Prabuty - 9 X 1797 Gd). Initially, a partner in the firm of Johann Wilhelm Uphagen q, et seq. owner of the wholesale trade in cereals [grains] Carl Steffens und Söhne. In 1808, the ship had mor. grain of capacity. 180 lasts (about 400 tons). Since 1792 the owner of the house at Langer Markt 41 (Long Market) - Golden House, where he was for 150 years the family business currency. During the great fire destroyed Granaries q 5 of its granaries. He was the owner of the village Przywidz (Mariensee) and the surrounding estates. Survived by sons Carl Gustav Wilhelm (1790-1861), Ferdinand Eduard Ludwig and Friedrich Adolph Eugen (1798-1832).